Victoria’s Phillips Brewing gets Specific with new brewhouse

Phillips Brewing of Victoria turned to a local partner to deliver an efficient, new brewhouse — one that would continue to produce quality craft beer while helping to reduce their carbon footprint.

Earlier this year, Specific Mechanical of Central Saanich supplied the Greater Victoria brewer with a custom built brewhouse. At between 40 and 50 feet long and 20 feet wide, the brewing equipment has a capacity of 120 hectolitres. Chad MacIssac, Specific Mechanical’s marketing and sales representative, says the brewhouse was manufactured in the spring. Phillips Brewing announced the update earlier in November.

“When it became obvious that we needed a new brewhouse, we wanted to ensure that we would be able to not only maintain the beer quality and consistency that we were used to, but also use the opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of our brewhouse,” stated Founder and Owner of Phillips Brewing and Malting Co. Matt Phillips in a media release.

“We were thrilled with how Specific Mechanical Systems was able to accommodate these requests and build us a brewery that incorporated heat recovery, a mash press and hot side centrifuge — and do it all on a very short time line.”

The new system is automated and integrates a mash filter and centrifuge already owned by Phillips. Specific Mechanical designed and build a single stack condenser to collect steam from the kettles, cool it to water and use it elsewhere in the Victoria brewery. It’s designed to be more efficient, producing the most beer from the raw materials required for each batch.

“We were thrilled to work with the team at Phillips to define the scope of the project, manufacture this state of the art system and deliver it in a very quick three months,” said Reo Phillips, President of Specific Mechanical Systems. “Being involved in the manufacture this system, with a focus toward environmental stewardship, has been a very rewarding process.”

Specific Mechanical and Phillips Brewing have been working together for a decade, MacIssac added. The manufacturer, located in Central Saanich’s Keating Business Area, has been providing brewing equipment to a variety of customers across North America. They also produce items for the distilling industry, notably creating a new distillery system for Victoria Distillery in Sidney.